Monday, September 3, 2012

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

Chapter I

Stoned on Opium

Edwin Drood woke up from his opium stupor among the groaning
groins of arches and imaginary beams of Chartres—with the muttering refrains of
thunder off there in the distance.

The massive gray square tower of some old Cathedral rose up
above him—a bleary sight for the stoned eyes of a jaded traveller. The bells
were gonging away for daily vesper service—the hunchback was busy as usual
humping the bells up in the gargoyle belfry.

The pretty choirboys were getting into their sullied white
robes—in a hurry to avoid being fondled by the nelly gay priest. Then they fell
into a long procession—filing into the service.

Drood found himself locked inside the iron-barred gates of
his mind—dividing the sanctuary from the chancel. He scuttled under a nearby
pew—hiding his wicked face from the passing angelic choir.

Drood felt his teeth chattering and clattering—but not
because he was chill. Whenever he tried to enunciate a distinct word—it flung
itself into the void, making no sense at all & having no sequence
whatsoever.

Opium had a way of making everything slightly
unintelligible—yet somehow reassuring to the phantom speaker inside his head.
Drood nodded knowingly with a gloomy smile—groping his way sullenly down the
broken stairs.

Drood said good morning to some of the doorkeeper
rats—hunched away beneath the stairs. Then he passed out—leaving the rats
rather puzzled.

”What did he say?” one of the rats asked.

A watchful pause.

”Unintelligible!”

__________________

Slowly reviving myself, loosening myself from listening to the rambling opiate
conversation inside my head—I tried to think straight-forwardly with an
attentive frown in the first person present tense like most people do.

I turned to the Rat—as it stood before me in a half-risen
attitude, glaring at me with his distrustful eyes. It battered its eye-lashes
at me—as if it were a woman getting ready to take possession of me by making a
lewd inhuman proposition.

For heaven’s sake, I said—feeling startled and trying to wake myself up.
Expostulating with my better more sane other half—before giving up and drowsily
dropping back into another stupor.